Why retire when you can restart a plant?

Arthur Bott doesn't have to work. At 74, he has lots of money and a good golf swing.

Instead, he is back on the job, making headway in an old-line industry decimated by Asian rivals -- plastic injection molding.

But where there was a once a vacant building, Grand Rapids Plastics at 4220 Roger B Chaffee Blvd. bustles with 45 employees churning out auto parts around the clock.

"Instead of estate planning, I'm spending this inheritance on getting people back to work," Bott said.

The high-energy businessman invited me to stop by the plant last week. Frustrated by Michigan's seven-year recession and a worsening U.S. economy, he offered his story and urged other business people to start growing their businesses.

Grand Rapids could see better days "if we have responsible people come back and help people get back to work," he said. "This area was built by entrepreneurs."

One of Grand Rapids' most successful entrepreneurs, Amway co-founder Rich DeVos, recently issued almost the same challenge.

"Stop dreaming somebody's going to come to town and build us a new factory," the 82-year-old DeVos told an audience of 500 at the West Michigan Regional Policy Conference.

"It's going to come from here, and we are going to make it happen."

Both men could enjoy comfortable, well-earned retirements, but these community elders want to rally those who know how to build a business to do just that, here and now.

"Why not invest your money in Grand Rapids, with people who are committed to Grand Rapids?" Bott said.

A native of Grand Rapids, he survived his share of business ups and down. He built up Grand Rapids Packaging, a corrugated-cardboard business, before the 1981-82 recession sent it into bankruptcy.

He climbed out of that hole and launched Grand Rapids Plastics. He built it into a $30 million business and 300 employees.

In 2001, he sold it and headed into retirement.

Two years later, that business was gone and everyone thrown out of work. Nationwide, in fact, plastic- part businesses were under pressure from the infamous "China price."

Bott, who still owned the building, bought back the assets. "Everyone said to me, 'Don't go back into business, particularly in Michigan. You're 69 years old,' " he said.

"I thought, I'm fine, but I've got 300 people who aren't fine."

By 2006, he reopened, producing replacement auto parts that are low-volume, high-hassle jobs other parts-makers avoid. He held down costs by buying deeply discounted machinery at auction, investing in $600,000 in 400-, 500- and 1,000-ton injection molders.

He also picked up on a growing dissatisfaction with Chinese-made parts, both in quality and cost of shipping.

Lacks Enterprises was his first big contract; Johnson Controls Inc. and Magna Donnelly also came along.

He broke into the ranks of Tier One suppliers when Chrysler welcomed him aboard. Its representatives were impressed not only with his financials, but with the tidy plant where the bathrooms are checked hourly and the equipment is up to date, he said.

Now, he's bidding on General Motors work.

Less than two years after opening, he needs more space and launched a $1 million expansion.

The 27,300-square-foot addition, which will house 13 more presses, is nearly finished and expected to create another 40 jobs.

The secret of success? "Doing business with me is low cost," he said. "People do business with people who cause them the least problems. Do you know the cost of a bad supplier?"

Byron Bank financed the expansion even as other banks were tightening credit in a subprime-plagued market.

"We believed in what he was proposing, " bank President Patrick Gill said. "It was consistent with our mission to use our resources to revitalize West Michigan."

And that, he said, "has to come, one business, one entrepreneur at a time."

As Bott redefines what it means to be an entrepreneur, he is saying to others: Come on in, the water's fine, if you know what you're doing.